FLOW: For Love of Water…New Film Examines Global Water Crisis

from Democracy Now!:



FLOW: For Love of Water…New Film Examines Global Water Crisis

FLOW: For Love of Water is a new documentary premiering in New York and Los Angeles today that takes on the global water crisis. We speak with filmmaker Irena Salina and water rights activist, Maude Barlow, head of the Council of Canadians, founder of the Blue Planet Project and author of several books, including Blue Covenant: The Global Water Crisis and the Coming Battle for the Right to Water.

Guests:

Maude Barlow, head of the Council of Canadians, Canada’s largest public advocacy organization, and founder of the Blue Planet Project. She is the author of sixteen books, including Blue Gold. Her latest is Blue Covenant: The Global Water Crisis and the Coming Battle for the Right to Water. She is a recipient of Sweden’s Right Livelihood Award, known as the “Alternative Nobel.”

Irena Salina, award-winning filmmaker. She is the director of FLOW.


JUAN GONZALEZ: The Democratic and Republican conventions were a two-week advertisement for soft drink giants Pepsi and Coca-Cola. At the Democratic convention in Denver, Coke signed on as one of the sponsors of the delegate gift bags, its logo emblazoned in large red letters on the side. Those bags were being hauled around by delegates as they convened in—that’s right, the Pepsi Center. Meanwhile, Coca-Cola was named the official recycler for both the Democratic and Republican conventions. Its logo was emblazoned on both sides of the gift bags at that convention.

AMY GOODMAN: While both companies are globally recognized for their soft drinks, many people don’t realize Coke and Pepsi are also making a fortune in bottled water. Coca-Cola has its Dasani brand; Pepsi, Aquafina. Last year, Pepsi was forced to make an embarrassing admission, that Aquafina is nothing more than tap water.

Well, the admission came amidst a national campaign to raise awareness about the economic and environmental costs of the billion-dollar bottled water industry. A new documentary premiering tonight in New York examines the global water crisis and takes on the issue of bottled water. It’s called FLOW: For Love of Water. This is an excerpt.




AMY GOODMAN: FLOW: For Love of Water, an excerpt of the new documentary premiering tonight both here in New York, as well as in Los Angeles.

Irena Salina is the director of FLOW. She joins us in our firehouse studio, along with Maude Barlow, head of the Council of Canadians, founder of the Blue Planet Project, author of sixteen books, including Blue Gold. Her latest is called Blue Covenant: The Global Water Crisis and the Coming Battle for the Right to Water.

We welcome you both to Democracy Now! Before we deal specifically with the movie, Maude Barlow, this issue of the conventions, talking about what is and what is not talked about. The Democratic and Republican conventions, brought to you by Pepsi and Coke. Pepsi Center is where the coronation for the Democrats took place, and Coca-Cola was everywhere on those delegate bags.


MAUDE BARLOW: Yeah, and at the recent Olympics, you know, as well, in China. Coca-Cola was one of the official sponsors, and you couldn’t bring water, even your own bottled water, in. You had to only—you could only get Coca-Cola water. I would love to know how many bottles of Coke water were thrown away and to add to the pollution in China.

You know, this is part of what I call the movement towards creating a global cartel of water, kind of like we have a global cartel of energy, where, you know, the day may come—and we’re resisting it very hard, so it may not; we hope it won’t, but that every drop of water will be spoken for privately by a corporation, whether it’s bottled water, utilities, you know, the service of, delivery of your water, recycling, desalination—nanotechnology is the latest. At every phase, water will be corporately owned, because we are a planet running out of fresh, clean water, which doesn’t sound right, because we all learned back in grade six that can’t happen, but it is happening. And the demand’s going like that, and the supply’s going like that, down.

And if we don’t understand this really soon, we’re going to find that corporations understand it much better than we do. They’re moving in to take control of water. Coke and Pepsi, by the way, are under a great deal of criticism and resistance around the world, and so they’re trying very hard to build their name through things like the two conventions, through giving money to schools and that kind of thing, through building pipes in Africa so poor people can access water, because, really, their story is one of going into communities around the world with Nestle, which is the other big bottled water conglomerate, and just removing people’s water rights. So they’re fighting back. ........(more)

The complete piece is at: http://www.democracynow.org/2008/9/12/flow_for_love_of_waternew_film

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